The Conservatives were quick to pounce:

"I think it's beyond tasteless," Harper said Friday, noting that the photo was taken when all four federal party leaders were attending a Holocaust memorial on Parliament Hill last spring.

"To imply that Mr. Duceppe and I share some sort of agenda other than opposing the Holocaust is disgraceful."

Sometimes I think Stephen Harper needs practise spotting a great soundbite moment. What he said was fine, but it was in the passive voice. Better if he had said, "I am proud to stand by Gilles Duceppe and anyone else in remembering the Holocaust and pledging that no matter what our differences, we agree that it will never happen again. Never again."

The sort of thing that might resonate well in Quebec -- an acknowledgment of Gilles Duceppe's fundamental decency.

A missed chance, but that's the way it goes.

It would have also played well in the Jewish community. Certainly the Liberals are having trouble on that count:

Meanwhile, the Jewish community is demanding an apology from the Liberals, for making them the first casualties in what is expected to be an increasingly nasty campaign in the weeks leading to Jan. 23.

I couldn't find a formal statement at the websites of the Canadian Jewish Congress or B'Nai Brith, so we'll have to settle for the vague "Jewish community".

Still, this isn't the first time the Liberals got into trouble for this blind spot when it comes to Jewish sensibilities:

Gilles Duceppe had told a group of supporters on Sunday while campaigning for the Jan. 23 election that his party would make the Liberals "disappear" from Quebec.

Transport Minister Lapierre shot back by saying: "That kind of language, where you say you want to make your opponents disappear, there's a little bit of a Nazi tone in that."

Frank Dimant, vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, told CBC News Online it's "totally illogical and unfair to invoke Nazi imagery in this context."

"It's totally incomprehensible how the notion of a Nazi regime and the atrocities it conducted [compares] to someone who spoke in terms of winning in an election by eliminating the opposition party."

And there is the controversy over what Liberal nominee Omar Alghabra said, or did not say, (or perhaps his supporters), when he won the nomination for Mississauga-Erindale:

To Mr. Gordon’s understanding, based on several eyewitness accounts, after Mr. Alghabra gave a standard acceptance speech, Mr.Osman, seized the microphone and made a series of "statements about this being a victory for Islam and how Muslims have now taken Mississauga". Only then, says the CCD’s President, without distancing himself from Mr.Osman’s statements, did Mr. Alghabra make the alleged statements after stepping down from the podium amidst his supporters.

George W Bush's success at increasing the traditionally low level of support American Jews have historically given to the Republicans played an important role in defeating John Kerry.

This is a dynamic that could be at play in this election in Canada. Certainly the Liberals seem to be doing the Conservative's work for them up until now. Members of the Jewish community have reasons to dislike the Liberals. Now the Conservatives have to explain why the Jewish community would benefit from the Conservative government in Ottawa.